Quadri, Toriola To Compete ITTF Africa Top 16 Cup in Sudan

                            Segun Toriola

Africa’s number two table tennis player, Aruna Quadri and six-time Olympian, Segun Toriola as well as Olufunke Oshonaike and Edem Offiong have been confirmed as Nigeria’s representatives at next month’s ITTF Africa Top 16 Cup holding in Khartoum, Sudan.

In the list of qualified players released by the Africa Table Tennis Federation (ATTF), Quadri who won the tournament in 2014 in Lagos will battle for the title against his rival, Egypt’s Omar Assar who has remained a threat to the Nigerian rise in the continent.

The tournament scheduled to hold on February 14 to 15 has the top 15 players in the continent including a player from the host country to complete the top 16.

Toriola will join Quadri to cmpete for the laurel in the men’s event while Oshonaike who has already secured a place at this year’s Rio Olympic Games in Brazil will be joined in the women event by Edem Offiong who is at present plying her trade in the Portuguese elite league.

Having claimed three titles in 2015, the Egyptian duo of Omar Assar and Dina Meshref, top the list of invitees for the two-day tournament to be staged at the International Conference Centre in Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan.
Winners in the men and women events will represent the continent at the 2016 World Cups.

The players competing at the event are:

Men: Omar Assar (Egypt), Quadri Aruna (Nigeria), El-Sayed Lashin (Egypt), Saheed Idowu (Congo Brazzaville), Segun Toriola (Nigeria), Idir Khourta (Algeria), Suraju Saka (Congo Brazzaville), Olouwachehoun Guiganfode (Benin), Mawussi Agbetoglo (Togo), Sofiène Boudjadja (Algeria), Adem Hamam (Tunisia), Fessou Lawson-Gaizer (Togo), Alain Patrick Jague Niken Jiotsa (Cameroon), Derek Abrefa (Ghana), Emmanuel Ngwe Nikeng (Cameroon)

Women: Dina Meshref (Egypt), Nadeen El-Dawlatly (Egypt), Han Xing (Congo Brazzaville), Olufunke Oshonaike (Nigeria), Offiong Edem (Nigeria), Sara Hanffou (Cameroon), Islem Laid (Algeria), Lynda Loghraibi (Algeria), Zodwa Maphanga (South Africa), Amma Liobaka (Democratic Republic of Congo), Onyinyechi Nwachukwu (Congo Brazzaville), Cynthia Kwabi (Ghana), Harriet Ntumnyuy (Cameroon), Celia baah-Danso (Ghana), Isabel Albino (Angola).

Egypt’s Omar Assar and Dina Meshref are the defending champions of the competition.

With Channel Television

America's oldest teacher at 102

                                                            THE 74/VIA YOUTUBE

America's oldest teacher turned 102 on Tuesday, and is still going strong.

Agnes Zhelesnik works 35 hours a week at the private Sundance School in New Jersey, teaching very young students how to cook and sew.

The Watchung resident, who began working as a teacher when she was 81, has no plans to stop anytime soon.

"These children have to grow up to be a hundred first," she cracked to the Courier News of Bridgewater on Friday, when she was still 101. "I am going to stay as long as I can, make them happy as good as I can. Who could get it better?"

Zhelesnik teaches pre-kindergarten to fifth-grade students at the North Plainfield school. She is known at the school, where her daughter also works, as "granny."

At the birthday celebration at the school on Friday, her daughter, granddaughter and 18-month-old great-granddaughter were also present.

"She is an icon in this school," Principal Benjamin Fox told the paper. "Besides the fact that she feeds everyone and makes the school smell wonderful, she just makes everybody smile. They are always hugging her. It's like a family and she is the granny of our family."

With News Wire Services

Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman show new prison hairstyle

                    FEDERAL SOCIAL READAPTATION CENTER

A new mugshot shows the Sinaloa Cartel kingpin, Joaquin Guzman, with a shaven head and no mustache.

The look is a far cry from his now-famous photo shaking hands with Sean Penn, where Guzman rocked a spiffy blue shirt, thick 'stache and full head of hair.

Meanwhile, Rolling Stone released the full 17-minute interview Guzman recorded shortly before his capture Friday.

In the recording Guzman, responding to questions Penn sent by Blackberry Messenger, said "no sir" when asked if he considered himself a violent person.

“Look, all I do is defend myself. Nothing more. But do I start looking for trouble? Never,” Guzman said.

This week the Mexican government began the long process of extraditing Guzman to the U.S. to face trial.

The handoff will probably take “one year or longer,” the head of Mexico’s extradition office, Manuel Merino, told Radio Formula on Monday.

It’s unclear where Guzman would be brought to justice once he arrives in the U.S. He has two separate arrest warrants in California and Texas.

Those warrants, which include charges of organized crime, embezzlement and murder, are in addition to indictments in Illinois, New York, Florida and New Hampshire.

Mexico’s willingness to extradite Guzman is a sharp turnaround from the last time he was captured, in 2014, when then-Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said the extradition would happen only after he finished his sentence in Mexico in “300 or 400 years.”

Guzman’s lawyers have already begun the legal effort against his detention and extradition.


With News Wire Services

Okorocha Intervenes In Lingering Fuel Crisis

                                                                 Rochas Okorocha

The Imo State Government has intervened in the lingering fuel crisis rocking the state over the past weeks.

The intervention came after the Independent Petroleum Marketers in Imo State shut down their stations and stopped dispensing fuel to the public in protest to an alleged intimidation and harassment of their members by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), according to Channel News.

In compliance with the Federal Government’s directive of ensuring that PMS is being sold at 86.50 Naira per litre, the DPR in Imo State embarked on a monitoring exercise to enforce this directive and forced most petrol stations to sell at 86.50 Naira per litre, said Channel News.

The action by the DPR angered the Independent Petroleum Marketers in the state as over 95 per cent of petroleum marketers shut down businesses to the public in what looked likes a protest.

They maintained that they do not buy the product at tank farms at government approved price and therefore, would not sell at 86.50 Naira per liter, or they will run at a loss.

Pastor on the run after raping and impregnating teenage girl

                              WEST WHITELAND TOWNSHIP POLICE

Jacob Malone, pervy Pennsylvania pastor, may have fled the state after he was charged last week with rape and institutional sexual assault, the West Whiteland Township police said.

The 33 years old, is on the run after raping and impregnating a teenage girl who apparently was lured around the country by the sicko for years, authorities say.

The young victim had first met Malone when he was a pastor at a church in Mesa, Ariz., when she was 12 years old. When she was 17, Malone invited her to stay with his family in Minnesota after he became a pastor at a local church, cops said. After moving to Chester County in Pennsylvania last year, the pastor again invited the teen to live with his family and even found a high school for her to attend.

Malone began sexually assaulting her last year while she was living with the pastor's family in Exton, cops say. In at least one incident Malone provided the girl with alcohol before he molested her, the West Whiteland Township police said.

The victim also claimed that Malone tried to have inappropriate contact with her when they lived in Minnesota, according to authorities.

Church leaders in Pennsylvania confronted Malone two months ago after learning about the girl's pregnancy and about another possible victim in another state, Philly.com reported. He has resigned from Calvary Fellowship, a non-denominational church in Downingtown, according to the news website.

"Our church's goal in difficult moments like this is to protect the innocents, first of all," Bill Bateman, a pastor at the church, told Philly.com Monday. "And, number two, we strive to bring about repentance and restoration of the offender.""Our church's goal in difficult moments like this is to protect the innocents, first of all," Bill Bateman, a pastor at the church, told Philly.com Monday. "And, number two, we strive to bring about repentance and restoration of the offender."